(under the class definition) Devices in which a means is provided for cutting dead crop material into a plurality of small pieces.
(1) Note. This definition includes devices for chopping up leaves, brush, plant stalks and stubble. While the stalks are generally broken down or already severed from their roots and lying on the ground, they may be stalks which are still standing but from which the ears or the like have been picked.
SEE OR SEARCH CLASS
172, Earth Working, especially
35+, and 518+ for stalk choppers which chop the stalks into small pieces by shearing the same between a cutting member and the earth's surface. Generally the cutting member is a blade on a drum which rolls or is driven along the ground in such fashion that the ground acts as a back up means against which the cutter member bears as it shears through the stalks, the ground surface being at the same time either intentionally or merely incidentally stirred or agitated.
